Daejeon moves to build self-sufficient emergency medical system

Daejeon city officials and regional hospital leaders have begun discussing how to build a self-sufficient essential and emergency medical system, with the goal of ensuring that patients who fall ill in Daejeon receive their full course of treatment there.

The city convened a meeting of general hospital heads Friday at the city hall conference room to advance its "Daejeon-model emergency medical system overhaul," a campaign pledge of the current administration.

Daejeon Mayor Heo Tae-jeong attended the meeting along with representatives from Chungnam National University Hospital, Konyang University Hospital, Eulji University Hospital, Daejeon St. Mary's Hospital, Daejeon Sun Hospital, Yuseong Sun Hospital, Daejeon Veterans Hospital, Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service Daejeon Hospital, Daejeon Korea Hospital and Daecheong Hospital. Participants shared an overview of the city's essential and emergency medical landscape and focused on how hospitals could divide responsibilities and cooperate more effectively.

Daejeon serves as the medical hub of the Chungcheong region, with patients from outside the city accounting for 34.8 percent of all admissions — the second-highest rate in the country after Seoul. About one in four emergency room patients comes from another city or province, meaning Daejeon's hospitals in effect shoulder a substantial share of the entire region's medical demand.

Conditions on the ground, however, remain difficult. Emergency room staffing, which fell sharply during the doctors-government standoff, has partially recovered but has yet to return to previous levels. The system also lacks adequate capacity for nighttime and holiday admissions and surgeries, and emergency rooms continue to face overcrowding as critical patients concentrate there.

In response, the city is restructuring its emergency medical system around three priorities: concentrating critical care, dispersing minor cases and optimizing patient transport.

For serious and complex cases, the city will strengthen the capacity of regional referral centers to provide definitive treatment in a timely manner, while bolstering nighttime and holiday admission, surgery and follow-up care functions at mid-level district hospitals. In residential areas, the city plans to expand after-hours pediatric clinics and nighttime and holiday services at smaller clinics to reduce the flow of minor cases into large hospital emergency rooms.

The city will also strengthen inter-hospital transfer and joint consultation systems. It plans to expand the referral network linking regional and district-level medical institutions and to enhance around-the-clock capacity checks and transfer coordination, so patients no longer have to move from hospital to hospital in search of available care.

The city is also accelerating a revamp of its emergency patient transport system. On Aug. 12, it revised its "Daejeon-model emergency patient transport and reception guidelines," which are designed to shorten the time needed to identify a receiving hospital and ensure patients are sent to a facility matching their condition. The revised guidelines take full effect Tuesday. In September, the city, the fire department and medical institutions plan to sign an MOU to establish a standing communication network and further strengthen the cooperative framework for emergency patient transport and reception.

Through the overhaul, the city aims to progressively cut the current average of 15 minutes needed to select a hospital for an emergency patient, and to achieve two goals simultaneously: securing the "golden hour" for treatment and completing care within the region.

"I am grateful to Daejeon's medical institutions for holding the line under difficult circumstances, shouldering the medical needs of both Daejeon residents and the broader Chungcheong region," Mayor Heo said at the meeting. "An emergency medical system cannot be built by any single hospital or government agency alone. We will create a system in which capable hospitals take responsibility for critical patients, minor cases are treated close to home, and emergency patients are quickly connected to the right facility."

He added, "With the resolve that patients who fall ill in Daejeon will be cared for in Daejeon, we will strengthen cooperation among hospitals and reflect the voices from the field to build a Daejeon-model essential and emergency medical system that citizens can truly feel."